Wasps: The Literal Worst

this episode of Animal Logic is sponsored by curiosity stream wasps are the worst thing about the end of summer and it turns out they might just be my new favorite animal hi I'm Danielle Defoe and you're watching Animal Logic first things first wasp taxonomy is weird wasps are very closely related to ants bees and saw flies as you may have guessed from their appearance and fastidious nature in fact some wasps are more closely related to bees than they are to other species of wasp the general definition for a wasp is any insect in the Hymenoptera order and a pock Rinna suborder that is not a bee or ant there are a lot of different species of wasp over a hundred thousand since the group is so large many species exhibit dramatically different behavior for example some wasps like the bane of everyone's summer the yellowjacket are you social this means that they live in colonies raised young that aren't their own and have specific jobs similar to ants and many bees yet many other species of wasps are solitary and only ever interact with other wasps when mating the species that do build nests build them out of wood pulp mixed with saliva and the insides of their nest is often velvety to the touch it's not just differing behavior though often you wouldn't know a wasp was a wasp just by looking at it wasps come in a large variety of shapes sizes colors and the only thing that the entire group has in common is their thin waist their bodies range in size from the giant 7 centimeters long - the tiny 0.1 millimeters long wasps have been around annoying people for a really long time 150 million years to be specific however the first wasps to appear that resembled modern wasps were around 60 million years ago as far as interactions with humans go it's safe to say that they've been around ruining barbecues for as long as we've been around having them in fact possibly the earliest reference to wasps and human literature comes from the Greek comedy from 422 BC titled the wasp their name coming from a chorus of alders featured in the play similar to their much more popular relatives the bees wasps do pollinate they're just not very good at it you see these are covered in fuzz and when they land on a flower the pollen easily sticks to their bodies on the other hand most wasps are slick and the pollen just doesn't take hold nearly as well wasps primarily eat nectar and as the season winds down their hunting time grows shorter they grow hungrier angrier and more desperate in fact some might say they begin to terrorize which is why they're such [ __ ] in the late summer and early autumn they fall prey primarily to small birds and me with the newspaper though some species like the giant Japanese Hornet do fall prey to the larger predators like the honey Buzzard which are relatives of the hawk now despite the reputation for being the literal worst there is something worse than a wasp their larvae wasp larvae are the biggest jerks in the animal kingdom you heard it here first folks first of all many of them are parasitoid meaning that they are deposited and raised in a host body that's a nice way of saying some wasps lay eggs in their prey watch out Peter then the larvae will eat the host from the inside out though some larvae won't devour the host from the inside and instead will just eat all of the food that the host consumes other species of wasp will lay their eggs and egg clusters from other species and their larvae will eat the competing eggs so that's nice though it's the aptly named Emerald jewel wasp who takes the cake for most horrific and craziest reproductive cycle this wasp will find the cockroach about four times its size sting it to take it out of commission and then it will sting a Ted with surgical precision disabling the part of the roaches brain that controls dopamine open the stops the output basically taking away all free will of movements in the cockroach turning it into a zombie roach which is a phrase I hoped I'd never have to say after this struggle to recoup some lost energy the wasp will rip off one of the roaches then 10a for a little roach blood pick me up they will then lead their new zombie pet to a tunnel where they'll lay their eggs on the zombie roach and then blockades said tunnel the eggs will hatch and the larvae will burrow into the still living still zombified cockroach and feed on its insides a few weeks later a fully developed emerald jewel wasp will burst out of the roach carcass like a freaking xenomorph and go on to repeat the cycle so yeah fun times some wasp species like the police deus salsa fer our brood parasites meaning that they'll lay their eggs in the nests of other wasps who will mistakenly raise them as their own not all species of wasps are parasitoid and instead can be solitary after mating the female will build a nest for the larvae sometimes leaving the carcass of another insect in the nest for the larvae to feed on this is called mass provisioning as opposed to progressive provisioning which is when the mom has to constantly bring food for the larvae since adult wasps only ever really eat nectar if you see a wasp catch another insect it's to feed their babies some wasps larvae even control the adults Hornet adults can't digest solid food so they will gather solid food to bring to their larvae which can eat solids the larvae will digest the food and produce a nutrient-rich liquid that the adults can eat possibly the most interesting wasp is the Panda ant you heard me despite what their name might have you believe Panda ants or velvet ants are a family of wasps that resemble ants and the females are wingless they come in a variety of bright colors though it's the black and white ones that give them their name they may look cute but don't let that distract you these girls pack a mean punch they've been nicknamed cow killers and their sting has been rated a 3 out of 4 on the Schmidt index for insect bites since they are not you social and are solitary panda answer classified as wasps instead of ants I told you whilst taxonomy is weird but next up we have the marvelously named tarantula hawk these gorgeous wasps have a sting that rates a four to four on the Schmidt pain index and they are one of only three animals to achieve this rating renting second only to the bullet ant Schmidt describes the sting as blinding fierce and shockingly electric it's supposed to paralyze your body for five minutes so yeah crazy bite but that's not the best part they were named tarantula Hawks for a reason they're huge measuring five centimetres long and they killed tarantulas but not an irregular boring let's kill this thing for food type of way nope tarantula Hawks are much more clever than that similar to the emerald jewel wasp it will sting the tarantula to permanently paralyzed it and then they will lay their eggs inside the still-living tarantula the larvae will then hatch and eat their way out of the tarantula who lives just long enough to bear witness to this entire horrifying experience but they aren't the only big wasp out there meet the giant Japanese Hornet a wasp that has truly earned its name they measure over four centimetres long and have a wingspan of over six centimeters these wasps are you social and live in colonies with thousands of other giant Japanese Hornets that is a literal nightmare these wasps are super helpful and super harmful often farmers love them because they control crop pest populations but a purists on the other hand hate them because they can decimate a honeybee colony in a couple of hours European honeybees are especially vulnerable as they have no evolutionary defenses against these behemoths four times their size about 30 giant Japanese Hornets can kill about 30,000 European honeybees just under three hours they attack picking off the puny honeybees one by one slaughtering their population and ignoring the fallen carcasses of the honeybees as that's not what they're there to eat when the honeybee defenses have fallen the Hornets will enter the colony feast on the larvae and bring their flesh back to feed their queen it's pretty brutal Japanese honeybees fare a bit better than their European cousins as they've had the benefit of evolving alongside the Hornets while the Japanese honeybees are still no match in size for the Hornets they do have one strategy and it's pretty smart they will lure a single Hornet into the heart of their colony and right when it's about to go to town on their larvae the honeybees will pounce hundreds of them will pile on top of the Hornet vibrating and creating a convection oven to cook the Hornet alive honeybees can tolerate a slightly higher temperature threshold than the Hornets and when their pile reaches 47 degrees Celsius the Hornet is done for if you ever run into a giant Japanese Hornet I suggest you get out of there when they sting they inject large amounts of venom and that venom is so powerful it can dissolve human skin and finally the warrior wasps these you social wasps look like they're made of obsidian and along with the bullet ant and tarantula hawk are the only insects in the world to rate a four on the Schmidt pain index he described the pain as torture you're chained to the flow of an active volcano why did I start this list warrior wasps as their name suggests are very aggressive and attack in large groups not only that but when they feel threatened they can beat their wings against their bodies to make a sound similar to that of marching soldiers as annoying as wasps can be they play an incredibly valuable role in the ecosystem wasps are apex predators responsible for keeping arthropod populations in check arthropods including spiders mites and other insects are the largest phylum in the world and without wasps to regulate their populations the world would be overrun with a plague of pests this struggle between predator and prey is as interesting as anything you'd see on the plains of the Serengeti just on a macro scale even better this amazing clash between insects is something that you can see right at home in your backyard to see it all at an even closer angle I highly recommend that you go and watch big world in a small garden which is featured on curiosity stream who sponsored this episode the documentary is a beautiful macro look at the world of insects found in your backyard by acclaimed nature photographer Martin Dorn you're able to get a completely different perspective of the world from the one we live in daily you get to see a world that is 50 times larger than the one we're used to it's a really beautiful and amazing documentary that I really think you'll love curiosity stream is a subscription streaming service that offers over 1,700 documentaries and nonfiction titles from some of the world's best filmmakers including exclusive originals their nature documentaries are my favorite and they've inspired me a lot when making animal logic it's a really cool service that I hope that you guys will love as much as I do if you want to watch big world in a small garden and hundreds of other documentaries go to curiosity stream comm slash animal logic and claim your 30-day free trial with the promo code animal logic what animal should I check out next please let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe for new episodes of animal logic every other week thanks for watching [Music] wasps I have a hard time making my mouth make those shapes for some reason wasp was once inator terrorize move

Channel: Animalogic

Views: 7,512,169

Keywords: animals, animal, logic, education, show, animalogic, crazy, ugly, weird, gross, beautiful, interesting, facts, animalsfacts, about, information, info, school, research, learn, learning, fun, easy, smart, wasp, antman, ant-man and the wasp, marvel, paul rudd, evangeline lilly, xenomorph, alien, chest burster, emerald jewel wasp, cockroach, burst, tarantula hawk, warrior wasp, marching, beating, sting, bite, pain index, scmidt, avengers

Id: RlIozdXmxQg

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 02 2018